The Philadelphia Story1940

Dexter:
[about marrying George] How in the world could you even think of it?

Tracy:
Because he is everything you're not. He's been poor. He's had to work and he's had to fight for everything. And I love him, as I never even began to love you.

Dexter:
Maybe so, but I doubt it. I think he's just a swing from me. But it's too violent a swing. Kittredge is no great tower of strength, you know, Tracy. He's just a tower.

Tracy:
You hardly know him.

Dexter:
To hardly know him is to know him well. And perhaps it offends my vanity to have anyone who is even remotely my wife re-marry so obviously beneath her.

Tracy:
How dare you! Any of you in this day and age use such an idiotic...

Dexter:
I'm talking about the difference in mind and spirit...Kittredge is not for you.

Tracy:
You bet he's for me. He's a great man and a good man. Already, he's of national importance.

Dexter:
You sound like Spy Magazine talking. But whatever he is, toots, you'll have to stick. He'll give you no out as I did.

Tracy:
I won't require one.

Dexter:
I suppose you'd still be attractive to any man of spirit, though. There's something engaging about it, this goddess business. There's something more challenging to the male than the, uh, more obvious charms.

Tracy:
Really?

Dexter:
Really. We're very vain, you know - 'This citadel can and shall be taken, and I'm the boy to do it.'

Tracy:
You seem quite contemptuous of me all of a sudden.

Dexter:
No, Red, not of you, never of you. Red, you could be the finest woman on this earth. I'm contemptuous of something inside of you you either can't help, or make no attempt to; your so-called 'strength' - your prejudice against weakness - your blank intolerance.

Tracy:
Is that all?

Dexter:
That's the gist of it; because you'll never be a first-class human being or a first-class woman, until you've learned to have some regard for human frailty. It's a pity your own foot can't slip a little sometime - but your sense of inner divinity wouldn't allow that. This goddess must and shall remain intact. There are more of you than people realize - a special class of the American Female. The Married Maidens.

Tracy:
So help me, Dexter, if you say another word, I'll...

Dexter:
I'm through, Red. For the moment, I've had my say.